A new report from Aite Group examines the scope and impact of internal fraud at North American financial institutions. Based on a November and December 2010 Aite Group survey of 35 fraud and product executives at financial institutions across the United States and Canada, the report provides insight into the severity of the problem and discusses technology solutions available to combat it.
“Internal fraud” is a term assigned to a wide variety of criminal behavior perpetrated by a firm’s own employees or contractors, and generally falls into three categories: theft from customers, theft from the firm, and abuse of position. It is a significant problem?more than half of the financial services firms surveyed attribute at least 5% of their total fraud losses to internal fraud, costing firms hundreds of millions of dollars collectively. Most financial services firms are not keen to discuss the issue; institutions that build their brands on trust and reliability do not want it widely known that insider fraud is a problem. As a result, 35% of survey respondents reported prosecuting 10% or less of their confirmed internal fraud cases. Financial services firms can take measures to protect themselves, including a layered approach of collaborative and analytical fraud mitigation techniques.
“Financial services firms must examine their current internal fraud prevention environment and determine how to bolster it,” says Julie Conroy McNelley, senior analyst with Aite Group and co-author of this report. “As competitors develop more robust defenses, fraudsters will migrate to the path of least resistance.”
The report mentions the following providers of fraud prevention technologies that financial institutions can use to combat internal fraud: 41st Parameter, Acxiom, BlueCava, Detica, Early Warning Services (EWS), Equifax, Experian, First Advantage, FIS, ID Analytics, ID Insight, iOvation, LexisNexis, Memento, NICE Actimize, Norkom, RSA, and TransUnion.
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